What Is Included in a £190 Rat Treatment for a Flat?

The Phone Call

Three or four questions: what you have seen or heard, where in the flat, whether it is a purpose-built block or a conversion, and which floor you are on. That last one matters more than people expect — rats on a ground floor usually came from below, and rats on a second floor came up through the building.

You get the price on that call. £190, confirmed before anything is booked.

The Visit: The First Twenty Minutes

The technician looks before treating. Inside: behind and under the kitchen units, the airing cupboard, the boxing around the soil stack, under the bath if there is access, the meter cupboard, and any communal cupboard you have access to.

Outside: the base of the building, the bin store, the gullies, the air bricks, and where service pipes enter. In a flat a lot of that is not yours, which is exactly why it gets looked at.

The Treatment Itself

Bait or traps go where the evidence is, in tamper-resistant housings, not scattered around. In a flat that is usually the kitchen void, the service riser boxing and any point where the flat meets the communal parts of the building.

You are told where every point is before we leave, so nothing is left in your home that you do not know about. If you have children or pets, say so on the phone and the placement is planned around it.

The Conversation You Might Not Want

In a block, the survey often points at something that is not yours: a bin store, a riser, a defect in the communal drainage, or a neighbouring flat. When that happens you will be told, and you will be told in language you can forward to a managing agent.

It is a less satisfying end to a visit than "all sorted". But a treatment inside your flat while the building keeps supplying the problem is £190 that buys you a few weeks, and we would rather you spent it once, properly.

The Follow-Up

Included in the £190. We come back, check whether the bait has been taken, read the situation and confirm activity has stopped — or tell you honestly that it has not and why.

The one thing worth doing between visits: keep a note of any noise, and where and when you heard it. It is genuinely useful and it costs you nothing.